Maurice Jones

Award-winning journalist Maurice Jones, 73, was taken on board by Tom Sharpe agent Sonia Land in 2011...and immediately hailed as the new Sharpe. His darkly humorous debut novel Last Resort (published 2012) was lauded as 'brilliantly original...laugh-out-loud funny...a must read' by The Sun, echoing ex-Home Secretary David Blunkett's assessment of 'lashings of humour and great originality...we may well have a new Tom Sharpe here.' There was even a thumbs-up from Eastenders' Dot Cotton (actress June Brown) who believes 'the timing of this book could not be better.'

Maurice, who worked for former miners' leader Arthur Scargill for 12 years, shreds labour movement loudmouths in his fictional tale of a failed union demagogue and cash-strapped council boss who sees a way back up the national political ladder by 'exporting' a Lancashire town's financially draining care-home folk to specially converted cut-price Thai resorts. It's greeted as a revolutionary concept that could solve the entire demographic and economic nightmare the elderly pose in the west.

But widespread initial enthusiasm wavers as sex-related deaths thin the ranks and sinister agendas are suspected. Beneath the 'brilliantly original' humour there is a powerful message that should strike a chord with all generations for one chief reason: What's suggested might actually happen.

The second book in the trilogy, A Drop in the Ocean, was published in July, 2014, and follows a similar theme, but this time with the action mostly at sea, pursuing an agenda squarely focussed on demolishing political correctness.

Maurice, a hobby pilot, writes in Lancashire, Finland and Thailand where he spends much of his time.

The final book in the trilogy, Dead Wringers, came out in October, 2017. It takes mega-rich Leftly conman Arnie Ratledge to new heights as he morphs into a prophet, getting God to wring lucrative business endorsements out of long-dead celebs.